9.6.07
Oh my Goddess -
Someone is actually making a mom take RESPONSIBILITY for her actions with her children. Fucking brilliant. As if the laws are complicated or something. So simple = you just don't serve underage. That is all.
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2 comments:
That's a damn shame. Every responsible parent I know understands that their kids are probably going to drink, and that the best thing you can do is to make sure they drink in a safe environment instead of turning it into a rebellious act. Punishing parents for trying to keep control of their children's drinking just makes everything worse.
I understand that this may be an especially extreme case, like the prosecutor claimed. The children do seem a bit young to me... but not telling the other kids' parents is unfortunately a necessity -- 3/4s of the parents would probably have been relieved to know that their kids were drinking in a chaperoned environment and being made to spend the night afterwards. But if even one parent had overreacted, then the cops would have gotten involved. And this case just proves why it's necessary to keep the cops out of it.
I've had conversations with parents at work who are honestly conflicted about how to handle these cases. They know that their children are going to drink at parties, and want to do what they can to keep it safe...but at the same time, they know that they would be taking a horrible legal risk if they let themselves get involved. This law has a real chilling effect, and the usual result is that parents who want to do the right thing end up letting their kids drink unsupervised. In our current legal system, the best-case scenario is that you end up with cases like this, where one kids' parents TRY to make the best decisions for everyone, but still can't get the other parents involved. That's far from ideal, also. If parents were allowed to let their children drink, then every kid at the party could have let their parents make an informed decision about it. If we want to make parents take responsibility for their children like you say, then the first step is to seriously reform our drinking laws.
Or raise their kids better. With self control and to be responsible for their own actions. The adults have a responsibility to work within the laws and change them or deal with the consequences for breaking them. The children are responsible for obeying them or dealing with the consequences for breaking them. Very simple to me, and where I come from the average "and now I go get drunk every weekend" age is about 13-14. 2 vital concepts = self control and self responsibility.
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